The Golden Vial

by Thomas Locke

  Dally softly murmured, “I am to reach . . .”

  “Remember what I said earlier,” Mistress Edlyn said. “The time for fear and secrecy and whispers is over. Now I want you to sit up straight. That’s better. Take a deep breath. Another. Now I want you to see your next words as a declaration. Your life is about to take a new turning. Ready? All right. Now tell me and the entire world who you are.”

  Dally had to pause long enough to wipe her cheeks. “I light one candle, then I pass the flame to the other.”

  “Correct. And after that?”

  “I . . . I am to bond with the fire.”

  “Excellent. The proper term is, you claim the force. Young lady, this statement alone sets you apart. Most acolytes must have their dream interpreted. The candle speaks to them, but they do not understand what is required.”

  Dally resisted the urge to duck her head once more. “Am I what you said? An acolyte?”

  “Of that I am certain. Now light the candles and declare as much to all the mages of this world.”

  Dally had known she could connect with the invisible forces ever since her very first month serving in the mayor’s house. It was one of the elements that had helped her survive this long, as she could draw the candle’s force around her and thus remain shielded from the home’s tension. This same act of shielding had also offered insight into how the mayor’s wife had gradually changed from a cross woman into a bully. It was Krim’s way of handling the dread that dominated the entire valley. Dally could feel Krim’s hostility radiating through the house. But she also knew that her time of fearing this woman was over.

  As though to confirm this realization, Dally drew upon the power. And forged a flame in the center of her palm.

  This time, the Mistress did not snap at Norvin and Krim when they both gasped. Dally was not sure Edlyn even heard them. In the most frigid nights, when her little shed had been sheathed in winter’s ice, Dally had lit the flame and been comforted in so many ways. Such instances were the only times when she permitted herself to recall earlier fires and the family who had nestled about it, sharing comfort and safety.

  The thought of perhaps having a new place she could call home was distracting enough to dim her vision. But only for a moment.

  Dally lit the first candle. She allowed it to burn for a moment, then plucked the flame from the wick and lit the second. Just as in her dream.

  Only now, at this crucial juncture, two things happened that she had never foreseen.

  First, Myron said quietly, “As smooth a transfer as ever I have seen. Bravo.”

  And second, the Mistress said, “I think we should shift the focus of our next test.”

  Her aide said, “I absolutely agree.”

  “My dear, we require a sign that you are capable of controlling the force. I want you to tell me how the candle speaks with you.”

  “I ask a question.”

  “What kind of question?”

  “Most any kind. I ask, the flame takes me.” It was just the two of them now. All the others who leaned forward and listened intently, the massed villagers outside her window—they were merely shadows painted against the backdrop of her former existence. “Usually I ask what life is like somewhere else.”

  “You are shown the answer, is that what you are saying?”

  “The answer, the place, the people, it’s all the same. I ask, I see.”

  Edlyn nodded slowly. “It is called far-seeing, and it is a rare feat indeed. Can you look into the future or the past?”

  “Neither. Only the now. I’ve tried to see the past, but I . . .”

  “Tell me.”

  “I asked to see my family. The answer was a wall. Dark and hard as death.” Dally flushed. “The same wall blocked me when I asked if I would know a lover in the future. But sometimes, not often, I’ve been shown events that lead up to the answer I seek.”

  Edlyn continued to nod in time to Dally’s words. “So the portal only opens when you ask the proper question. Very well. I wish to ask about events that impact this day and place. Let us see if it is possible for you to apply this gift to the needs of others. Are you ready?”

  “I . . . Yes. But I haven’t spoken with the flame in well over a year.”

  “So let us see if the force is still yours to claim.” Edlyn leaned in closer. “What has happened to our dearest friend Hyam, as a result of the events of . . .”

  Her aide softly supplied, “Twenty-nine.”

  “Twenty-nine days ago,” Edlyn said. “If you are allowed, tell us where he was just before then. And what happened that led to where he is now, and what he still endures.”

  Dally reached out and drew the lit candle closer toward her. She took a long, slow breath, gathering herself, drawing away from all that surrounded her. Then she asked the question.

  And she went.

  5

  She saw.

  The candle’s flame opened and enveloped her. The next thing she knew, Dally observed an entire city fashioned from stone as dark as slate, with a massive castle at its heart. And yet despite the forbidding color, Dally knew this was a haven against all the forces that threatened their realm.

  She saw.

  A gathering of many races. Elves and Ashanta and men. Dally did not know of their existence until then, and yet now she could name the individuals. Kings and queens and leaders, all. Chieftains of the badland clans. All united against the forces that sought to enslave mankind.

  She could name those as well now. The Milantians. The race of wizards, defeated ten centuries past, now on the rise once more.

  Dally watched them crown Shona, saw her take the oath to lead them in the battle to come.

  Then she realized with a start that Shona was scarcely older than she was herself. And yet there was something about how Shona wore the mantle of power that made her age of no importance.

  Then Dally realized Shona was a mage as well. A warrior queen with the wizard forces at her command.

  Dally saw how this gathering broke the treaties of a thousand years and realized that it was intended as an affirmation of the need for change.

  She realized this was also why Mistress Edlyn and her accompanying wizards had entered Dally’s village. Because the treaties had been revoked by the same urgent needs of this new age.

  She saw.

  After the ceremony, Dally watched as Hyam returned to the Elves’ hidden realm. The Elves kept four guards on formal duty by the secret forest portal, waiting for him.

  Hyam came to a tree that served as home and sickroom both. He climbed a living staircase and entered a balcony, where his wife Joelle lay.

  Dally knew in the mysterious gift of the candle’s awareness that Joelle’s life breath had been stolen by a Milantian mage. The mage had been destroyed, but Joelle remained trapped within this coma. There was nothing the healers could do. She slept and did not dream, scarcely breathing, held to this earth by the slightest of physical bonds. And by Hyam’s love.

  The scene shifted, and though the two figures remained exactly as they had been, Dally realized time had passed. Far too much time. A year and a half by human count, though here in the green kingdom time did not possess the same relentless grip. Hyam had come and gone several times, traveling far and battling his way through several skirmishes. Then returning. To this place.

  Twenty-nine days before this one, Joelle’s nursemaids murmured soft greetings and departed. Hyam knelt by her side so as to fit his face close to hers. When that was not enough, he burrowed into the warm softness where her hair fell over his face, cutting off his connection to anything beyond his bond to Joelle. He breathed in the warmth and tasted her skin. The Elves had used some flowered fragrance when they washed her, and it tingled softly on his lips. But it was still her, the unique beauty still there, even when her breath came so softly he feared it had stopped altogether.

  Then Dally heard, “Hyam.”

  Hyam lifted his head. Joelle was watching him. “Beloved, are you . . .”r />
  Her shush was soft as the dusk. “Listen to me. I am departing.”

  “Joelle, no, you mustn’t, you can’t—”

  Again the shush, gentle as a first kiss. “Hyam, you must live for us both.”

  And she was gone.

  She saw.

  They buried Joelle as they would an Elven queen. The last remaining king of the Elves, Darwain, and his wife served as Hyam’s seconds. The regents of the hidden realm sang a lilting dirge to the tree that had sheltered Hyam’s beloved. Then the queen turned to Hyam and declared that her friend the tree would be honored to serve as Joelle’s pyre.

  Hyam spoke the required words, though Dally knew it almost wrenched his own life from his body. “Let it be done.”

  As the sun rose over the emerald kingdom, Darwain and his wife chanted words that resonated deeply. Joelle remained where she had breathed her last, upon the balcony, so high above them she might already have ascended partway to heaven.

  Then the Elven rulers went silent, and the tree burst into flames.

  Though the funeral party ringed the tree’s base, they felt nothing, for all fire was directed upward, as fierce a power as it was silent, carrying Joelle aloft on her final earthly voyage.

  Dally watched as ashes were gathered in three urns. Hyam intended to spread the contents of his urn around the garden Joelle had planted, the one surrounding their home within the magical grove. The second urn was accepted by the senior wizard of Falmouth Port, a greybeard named Trace. Dally knew he intended to burn it with the collective mage-force of every Falmouth wizard. The third was to be transported to the Ashanta territory from which Joelle had been banished. For Hyam’s wife had been a forbidden mix of human and Ashanta blood. Her exclusion had been overturned by the coming of a new age. And now Joelle’s remains would be planted by the Eagle’s Claw offering stone, granting her a permanent resting place in the land from which she had been expelled.

  The procession wound through the woodlands, back to the palace at the lake’s heart. There Darwain and his queen made all welcome. The minstrels sang, and the company of men and Ashanta and Elves knew the peace of shared sorrow. And the company struggled for a means to show Hyam that he was not alone. That he was, in fact, a friend to all.

  6

  The secret kingdom receded until all Dally saw was the candle’s flame. She straightened, eased the tension in her neck, took a long breath, and looked around.

  Dally had not been aware until that moment that she had spoken at all. But she must have, for she saw that both Edlyn’s and Myron’s faces were streaked with tears. The mages by the front door wept openly.

  Mistress Edlyn wiped her eyes with the hem of her robe. She rose slowly to her feet and addressed the dumbfounded couple still hovering in the side corridor. “The Lady Shona wishes to meet with the leaders of Three Valleys. She invites three elders from each village to gather with her in two days.”

  Norvin seemed to have difficulty finding his voice. “But that isn’t enough time to alert the farthest villagers.”

  “Riders have already been sent.” Edlyn turned and offered Dally a tremulous smile. “My dear, be so good as to walk out with me.”

  The sunlight seemed to pierce Dally, as if the experience had left her hold on life very tenuous indeed.

  Edlyn slowed her step to match Dally’s uncertain movements and said, “Do you understand why Shona has not greeted you personally?”

  “Meda said she is in mourning.”

  “Joelle was her dear friend. She carries the sorrow we all feel, and more.”

  “Mistress, I don’t understand why you feel it necessary to explain such things to me.”

  Myron stood by the open gate and smiled back at the two of them.

  Edlyn said, “I like you, Dally. Your gifts extend far beyond the abilities with magic.”

  “No one has called me such as that before. Gifted.”

  “I told you, those times are over.” Edlyn stopped her midway down the path and lowered her voice so that it would not carry to the throng watching them from the lane. “To answer your question, the gift you have demonstrated is quite rare. Especially among humans. What is more, as I listened to you just now, I was filled with a certainty that you shall play a vital role in the conflict to come.”

  Dally turned her back to the villagers, which meant facing Norvin and Krim standing in the doorway. Her head spun with questions. She settled on, “Conflict?”

  “The fiends that attacked your home, the isolation of your valley, Joelle’s death, all these and many other events are tied to a greater darkness. One we have sworn to combat.”

  “I want to help.”

  “Then so you shall. A bevy of troops are going after the forest fiends tomorrow. We would like to offer a first defeat of the valley’s enemy to the elders’ gathering.”

  Dally’s heart rate quickened. “When do your soldiers leave?”

  “Mid-morning. Our patrols have spotted watchers from beyond the thorns at that time of day.”

  “Oh please, Mistress, can I come?”

  “Most certainly.” Edlyn started away, then added, “Be sure to bring your friends.”

  Dally found herself exhausted by the day’s events. She slipped inside her little shed and was instantly asleep. When she awoke, night blanketed the village. She emerged to discover one of the kitchen chairs stationed by her doorway and a plate of food nestled under a checkered napkin. She ate by moonlight, feeding the occasional scrap to the dogs as they drifted about.

  Candles still burned inside the mayor’s house, so when she was done, Dally rose and carried the plate inside. “Thank you, mistress.”

  Krim’s only response was to take Dally’s plate and dunk it in the washing-up water.

  Norvin said, “I expect you’ll be leaving us soon.”

  “They’ve not said anything about the exact timing. But perhaps . . .”

  “You’ve been a good lass, and we’ll miss having you around. Won’t we, Krim?”

  When his wife held to her taut silence, Dally wished them both a good night and slipped out the back.

  Her dreams were of fires and Elves and telepathic beings who took solemn note as she drifted in and out of their forbidden realms.

  The next morning Dally was up and ready long before dawn. As she washed and then tended the dogs, she knew her world was about to undergo another drastic shift. What exactly, she had no idea. She was impatient to take the next step, and yet calmly so. She knew a remarkable sense of acceptance over how many elements of her new life were beyond her control and always would be. Which had been her situation for years. Even so, the differences were staggering.

  The dogs alerted her long before the horses drummed their way up the village lane. This time Dally was by the front gate to greet them. Six soldiers rode toward her, led by Alembord. The finery the soldiers had worn on their previous day was gone now. They all wore a similar earth-colored uniform of some heavy weave. Their weapons glinted and rattled as they approached. They were accompanied by the Long Hall Mistress in a grey robe rimmed by a stripe of palest blue. One of the soldiers led a riderless horse by its reins.

  Dally did her best to ignore the villagers who gaped from the lane’s other side and dropped into a deep curtsy. “Greetings, Captain, Mistress. Can I offer you and your troops fresh-drawn water?”

  “Thank you, lady. But the outriders are already in position.” Alembord’s grim intent matched his armaments. He untied a leather satchel from his saddle horn and offered it to her. “You need to don these.”

  The satchel’s leather was supple as felt and was sealed by a buckle of solid silver. “You want . . .”

  Mistress Edlyn said, “It is the uniform of warrior mages and their acolytes. You are going into combat. You need to be properly clothed.”

  “I would ask that you hurry, my lady,” Alembord said. “The colonel does not like to be kept waiting.”

  7

  Dally scurried back to her shed and unsealed the s
atchel. She forced herself to move faster than she would have liked, for everything she saw spoke of new beginnings. The clothes were secondhand, and the alterations were hasty and in places incomplete. The leggings stretched somewhat, which was good, because they were too tight. They were colored a grey several shades darker than the mages’ robes. Thin stripes of black leather ran down the outside of both legs. A singlet was worn on top, a much paler grey with a hint of blue, like a cloud before sunrise. Over this went a black leather vest with six ties and a seal embroidered over her rapidly pounding heart. Dally cinched the vest, then slipped into boots that ran almost to her knees.

  She wished she owned a mirror.

  When she walked back around the house, Krim offered her open-mouthed astonishment.

  Edlyn said approvingly, “Now you look the part.”

  “All that’s missing is your blade,” Alembord said.

  Norvin took that as his cue. “I have one she can—”

  “That is kind of you, Mayor. But there is no need.” Alembord handed Dally an embossed belt with scabbard and slender rapier. “Meda asked me to give you this. She says to tell you she trained with this blade, and she hopes it serves you well.”

  Edlyn granted her only a moment to regain control, then said, “Summon your friends, my dear. There is not a moment to lose.”

  Dally left Honor atop as fine a horse as she had ever seen. On one side rode the captain of Shona’s palace guard. One wolfhound trotted ahead of them, another just beyond Alembord’s mount. The other six made a silver-backed line behind the last troop. On Dally’s other side rode the Mistress of the Three Valleys Long Hall. The entire village came out to watch the procession. As they passed the girls who had taken such pleasure in tormenting her, Dally released a long sigh.

  Alembord patted his horse’s flank and asked, “Can you bond with these animals as well?”

  “Not in the same way as the dogs.” Dally stroked the horse’s mane. “I can make contact. In a small way. Sort of like saying hello.”